Sorry, I must not have been very clear as I was in a state of panic.
I don't really have too much advice to offer you but to hang in there. I am sure that you will be able to pull it off with a budget between 10 and 13. I'm sure the other Dis brides will be able to offer more advice on what is possible. Think DIY.
As for your guest count, since you already sent out STDs I would send out invites to those people. I know it will affect your count and numbers and budget. But if I got a STD and did not recieve a invite, I would be a little hurt and mad. I would make cuts in other places to accomidate the numbers if need be. I am sure your planner will be able to help you with this.
Thanks. As far as the guest count, I ran the numbers and if we still send out the 100 invites, even if we cut everything down to bare bones, it's still way over our budget. We know that most of them will understand because they are all family (we both have big families).
I agree, it's difficult as you have already sent out the STD's. Maybe you could alter the after wedding event to afternoon tea instead of a meal or buffet. Would this help at all? Also other things like cheaper accomodation, smaller wedding dress budget etc can make a big difference too. It's a horrible situation but I'm sure your planner will come up with some ideas to help you.
I think changes from a Wishes to an Escape means you lose your deposit on the original wedding. Please don't quote me on that as I'm not 100 percent sure, just something I read that another bride had posted.
I forgot to mention that our 10k min budget is only for DFTW stuff, we already have everything else paid for like my dress, the photog, etc. So there's nothing else for us to cut back on.
The tea thing sounds like a neat idea, but if we can't change to the Escape we would have to spend at least 75pp due to our contract, so not sure I would be spending that much on tea.
You are correct. OP I have just been though this myself, if I change from Wishes to Escape (EVEN if I still meet the $10,000 minimum i agreed to spend on Wishes if I went for Escape) I was told I would lose my $1000 deposit. I really feel for you xx
Thanks.
I am so so sorry that you are having to make these horrible decisions!!!
Have you worked out what the saving would be Wishes verses Escape even if you did lose your original deposit? It may even still be worthwhile as you could have a regular dining reservation as your reception and do your dances at the little cake/champagne reception included with the Escape package!!
I know how disappointed you must be, but try to remember that you are still marrying the man of your dreams in the happiest place on earth!!!
Good luck and a lot of
and
to you sweetie
This is exactly our thinking. We just want to get married in our most favorite place. I'll see what my planner says about changing to the Escape, but I really don't think it's going to work because we would have to cut out our grandparents, whom we both want there very much. My parents are divorced, so we have some "extra" family members, if that makes sense.
Im sorry! What a hassle and what heart and stomach ache! Given that you sent STDs, I tend to agree with the PP that it is bad form to not invite those people. However, perhaps the two of you could call every person and explain that due to unforeseen circumstances, you must adjust to an immediate family only wedding. But then you'd better stick yo that because dome people might feel hurt if they just didn't make the cut to like the top third of guests vs. fifteen true immediate family members!
Other thoughts are change the day or time. We did a wishes wedding on Tuesday at 10 followed by a brunch reception for 30. We were right at our minimum and had 2 characters and some other fun things. Of course, you name 2 of THE most expensive things right off the bat as things you will not cut. And having a DJ/dancing. Things important to you are important and I respect that, but I'd say choose one or the other? You aren't even IN that coach for very long!!!! What about waiting a year so that you and your DF can save the more $ to make that coach happen?
I'm sure your planner will have help for you. There's lots you can do at a near minimum wishes budget, but probably not for over 50 people and likely closer to 25 especially if the coach, the WP AND DJ/dancing are a must. You guys WILL figure this out!!!!
I've already talked to my mom and she agreed that the best thing right now is to do exactly what you said, call everybody and explain the situation, and she assured me that since they are all family, they will understand. It's hard because we have SO many family members that we can't just invite half without hurting the other half's feelings, so it's either invite everybody, or nobody.
The wedding is already a 10 am brunch wedding. At this point the DJ is not a necessity, I would be fine with an ipod or whatever, all we want are the first dance, father/daughter and mother/son dances. Sorry if I wasn't clear. We talked about postponing it, but with this whole situation, that would actually make things worse for us. Too complicated to explain.
I am sorry, but you may need to disregard my post. When you said that the major dances were important to you, I assumed you meant 'first dance, father/daughter' etc. I now see you are talking about a dance floor, so I assume you fell you want a DJ etc. Sorry I got confused!!!
Your were right the first time, I guess I just wasn't clear. The DJ isn't a necessity, and all we want are the main dances as in the first dance, mother/son and father/daughter dances. I was thinking if we only do like a 2 hour reception MAYBE we could get the DJ and have a little bit of dancing, but we'll see.
1. don't do full open bar.. wine/beer
2. reuse flowers from wedding as center pieces on your dinner tables
(this was actually very kewl)
3. single dinner option
its been 6 years but this is about what me an wife did since we paid for our disney wedding. was about 12k.
Thanks. We are doing a brunch, so there wasn't going to be a full bar and we already had plans to reuse the flowers. Now we're not going to be able to have any decor.
Our dance floor was $450.00. Our reception was in the California Grill, main restaurant, the dance floor wasn't very big so most of the guests just danced on the carpet. My dress was so big that most of the time I didn't fit on the dance floor, so I was on the carpet too. At first, when I saw the dance floor I was upset by how small it was, but once the party starts, no one really cares, everyone just dances where they can.
We had to stick to our $10,000 minimum too. After taxes and everything, we went to $12 thousand or so. Get your flowers from an outside vendor if possible. We went with Amy from Blossoms Orlando. She was spectacular. Very beautiful bouquets for half the price of Disney. She was right on time delivering everything the morning of the wedding, she put the petals down the aisle at the WP and put the petals on the tables at our reception. Total for our floral we spent around $450 (3 bouquets, 4 corsages, 6 bouts, petals on aisle and petals on reception tables).
For decor at our ceremony, only thing we splurged on was an aisle runner. But that's not very necessary, the carpet looks fine. We also had a memorial candle set up. That was it, and the WP looks gorgeous in our pictures. Disney provided our centerpieces for the reception. We had 3 floating candles at each table with silver confetti spread out. It look very beautiful and elegant and it was very inexpensive.
We did a bill on consumption bar. I was very iffy about it at first, we had a lot of drinkers at our wedding, but I'm so glad we chose to do this. We got back $850 for the bar consumption. It was SO much cheaper than an open bar. Also, our wedding was on a Monday, ceremony at 10am reception from 11-3. That helped keep our budget way down. Also, we didn't pay for transportation for everyone. Most of our guests drove to Disney, so we let them get to the ceremony on their own. The people that didn't have cars, we explained how to use Disney transportation and they were fine. We had a total of 42 guests, including ourselves.
Good luck with your budget. If you work hard enough on it, you can definitely stay within your range.
Thanks for this. I guess if we are able to change our location then we can use an outside florist, but for now we can't. Right now the only transporation we are paying for besides the coach are 2 limos. I guess we can eliminate those. Pretty much everybody was driving to our wedding, so our planner said we don't need the motor coaches or anything. I do like your centerpiece things that you did.
Thanks everybody! I know we will get this figured out, because we don't really have any other choice, other than cancelling the wedding and still having to shell out money, so that doesn't make sense. This "might" be do-able with 50 people, but the problem is, who do we cut out?
Forgot to mention that if we do have to cut the list way down, we would probably do the live webcast at least. We'll see.
It's all circumstantial and we could end up being able to extend the budget a little bit and make this work with everybody, but for right now we know that we must stick to the 10k minimum.
I guess you could send some sort of retraction due to budget issues? 
